Big City Dwellers: what is a thunderstorm like there?

Factual Questions
1

I’m writing a story set in New York City and would love to have a scene that takes place during a thunderstorm. Now, I know what a storm is like here in the Midwest, in a moderate sized city. However, I don’t know what it’s like in the middle of a very large city. I don’t know if it matters where in the city you are, but I’m thinking of setting his apartment in either Alphabet City or Harlem.

Do you see the lightning, or does it hit the tops of the buildings with nary a flash visible in your apartment? Or do you hear the booming, see the bright flashes of light? Does the wind get heavy or is it more blocked by the large buildings? If you were to open the windows during a thunderstorm, what would it sound like?

I want to describe this as accurately as possible and include as many sensory details as possible. Thank you very much for your help!

2

-Really loud thunder or nearby lightning strikes sets off car alarms.
-You can definitely see lightning – even if you can’t see the bolt, you see the flash.
-In Manhattan, the buildings can actually create a “wind tunnel” (Its actually more like what you get in a canyon) with incredibly powerful, cutting winds blowing north or south, but as you step off into the side streets, the wind is just ordinary.

In general powerful storms over Manhattan are rare. The heat rising off the City (from the buildings, the subways and the people) forms a nearly permanent area of higher-than expected pressure. VERY commonly a severe storm will affect Brooklyn and other nearby areas, but the strength of the storm detours around Manhattan island, where only a very ordinary rainstorm is felt.

3

I don’t live in a big city, but I’ve seen lightning storms from the John Hancock building in Chicago. Here’s some cool videos.

Sears Tower.

Empire State Building.

4

Depends where you live in terms of building.
Paris - Currently we’re on the ground floor of a 7 storey building looking out into a courtyard so as a result we don’t see any of the lightning but we hear the thunder which really seems to roll around (possibly amplified by the walls enclosing the courtyard). There have been times when the windows have rattled.

When the rain comes down it too is LOUD ! There’s nothing to cushion it; it ricochets off pavements, cobbles, windowsills, plant pots, railings etc. The drops falling are joined with those bouncing off obstacles on the way down. Puddles form quickly, you get wet from the bottom up, the drainage systems just can’t cope, there’s a lot of standing water and splash-back. It’s not unusual to find your trousers/tights are sodden from foot almost up to knee level. More than once I’ve taken off my shoes to scurry barefoot rather than sliding in wet backless sandal type shoes.

In summer you’re waiting for the storm, hoping the weather will crack for a bit of relief and the storms always come in the evening. After the rain the temperature may have fallen by about 10°C.

Other times of the year a thunderstorm may catch you unawares but it’s usually heralded by a strong, gusting wind which - as someone else said - might be “tunnelled” between buildings. You may be interested in something I’ve only noticed a few times which is that the sky seems to take on a strange yellowy hue in the lead-up to a thunderstorm. Imagine no definable clouds just grey with yellow undertone.

People stop in doorways, under shop awnings, café tables get pulled back further into shelter, groups gather at the foot of steps down into the metro waiting for the rain to ease up, everything becomes wet and slippery as people drip their umbrellas everywhere.

For another view point, quite literally, I used to live in Warsaw in a 6th floor flat. We used to sit out on our balcony to watch the thunderstorms - we would get a mug of tea and get comfy sitting on the outside of the windowsill with our feet on (non-metallic) chairs so we didn’t get wet.

It’s a long time ago now but I have no memory of hearing the rain at all (whereas it’s a defining feature of storms where I am now). I guess we were too high up - I do remember how cool it was leaning out and watching the raindrops from above. We had an unobstructed view over a car park, a large road and some rough ground before the next lot of apartment blocks and the lightning shows were a-maz-ing! Sheet lightning, forked lightning - you name it we saw it. From this view point we could see the grey clouds crawl across the sky too.

5

In NYC, it just starts to smell bad. Like garbage.

And being a idiot city-dwellers (such as me), many of us don’t bother to check the weather forecast before heading out, since we figure we’ll be in the “perfect comfort” of air conditioning all day.

But damn, I love me a good storm. Even when I get stuck in it (unless I’m wearing a suit).

6

It really depends on how high up you are. On the ground, the wind is buffeted by the buildings if you’re on the correct side, but the rain itself is louder. Thunder echoes a lot.

When I’m in my apartment, over 20 stories up, you don’t hear the rain. You hear the wind. It creates that vortex sound you hear when air rushes down a hallway or something. And when it whips rain into the windows, it’s a loud crash and then just wind. You know how, when you drive in the rain, a truck will kick a big sheet up at you and it makes a smacking sound against the windshield? It’s like that on the windows, except every 5 or 10 seconds. The other night, it kept me awake for hours. It wasn’t the overall level of noise, it was the CRASH-silence-CRASH-silence cycle.

The streets empty. No one, city dweller or country boy, wants to be out in the rain. So you see this normally packed street absolutely deserted. It’s very eerie in a post-apocalyptic sense.

7

This doesn’t sound right. The conditions you’ve described would tend to contribute to the formation of cumulonimbus clouds and thunder cells over the city.

8

If your story takes place in Alphabet City or Harlem . . . these aren’t anywhere near where the tall buildings are; those are primarily in Midtown or Lower Manhattan.

The only distinctive thing about Manhattan storms is that afterward, you’ll find a whole lot of abandoned broken umbrellas.

9

In Manhattan, the first thing that happens when the rain starts falling is that half the city tries to hail a cab. Every taxi is occupied within about 30 seconds, and your only chance after that is to be lucky enough to be right on the spot when a cab disgorges its passengers at the end of their ride.

10

Perhaps I am misinformed about the cause, but major storms do often (not always) bypass Manhattan. On doppler radar you can quite often see a Manhattan shaped hole in the storm.

I am addicted to Wundermap, and see this all the time.

To add to mhendo – vendors on every corner pop up, selling cheap umbrellas for $5.

11

Ha! I came into this thread to post this exact same thing. Every single taxi is occupied within seconds it seems. You can forget about hailing a cab during a storm.

12

Well, the clouds would form due to hot humid air rising from lower Manhattan cooling and condensing into clouds which promptly blow over some other part of the city and dump the rain.

I’ve spent my life in and around Chicago. One time while driving around the outer burbs with cornfields on each side of me, there were ground strikes all over the place. Scary as hell.

When I was working on the 37th floor (approx 400ft high) I watched as a front moved in from the west, slowly engulfing smaller buildings as it approached. It was basically one big wall of gray coming straight at us. As soon as it hit my building, the windows bowed a bit but held and rain was actually going upward as low winds hit the side of the building and went up. Looking down to the street, the few people daring to walk in the rain had their umbrellas inside out as they got drenched.

13

Another thing about big cities and rain in general is, as someone mentioned above: it’s loud! But the reason it’s specifically loud in NY is that everyone has window air conditioning units, made of metal. When raindrops hit these things, it makes a lot of noise.

14

Yes, as mentioned already, the impact of the rain in a heavy storm is very loud, off the pavement, cars, air conditioning units and scaffolding. What’s funny is that I’ve never stopped to realize that that’s NOT what a heavy storm sounds like elsewhere. Can you reciprocate and describe a thunderstorm in a rural area?

Thunder is loud, and can set of car alarms if lightning strikes nearby. I’ve seen trees downed by storms a-plenty in Queens and Brooklyn and Central Park. In Manhattan specifically, flashes of lightning are very noticeable, but really only if you’re looking for them or they happen right in view as you’re looking down a street or avenue; it’s not like the flash of light they generate is any brighter than the street lights, car headlights, etc., that are all around you anyway.

Heh, this discussion reminds me of when I was just out of college and working as a junior computer programmer on a military flight simulator. I got assigned to work on “the Moonshadow module” with a consultant working offsite on a ranch in Texas. I thought that was a cool military code name, but no, it turned out to be software meant to take the projected location of the moon in the night sky into account for the amount of light, the angle of it against the terrain (like mountains or hills) and where the aircraft could fly to stay in the shadow. I exclaimed in surprise, “The moon can cast a shadow?!” My teammate stared at me and said, “You never noticed?” “No, I’ve only seen shadows cast by streetlights at night!” He shook his head and said, “City boy…”

15

The cool thing about living in a highrise in downtown Chicago is watching the front approach. They nearly always come from the west or northwest, so you see the clouds building and a few preliminary lightning flashes. Then it gets closer, and Willis Tower takes a couple of lightning strikes. Then it gets over the Loop and the cooler lake, and the bottom drops out. The rain makes it harder to see the lightning bolts unless it’s a serious electrical storm. If lightning strikes my building or one nearby, the thunder is deafening and comes with almost no warning. A few minutes later, it’s rolled on through.

16

In Houston, it’s frequently accompanied by low level flooding - streets under a couple of inches of water, bayous overflowing, etc.

ETA: Not much to do with Manhatten, but there you go nonetheless. :smiley:

17

I’ve lived in NYC (Queens) and in the greater NYC area for a decade. I grew up in the ‘burbs, and my parents now live in ruralia (yes, I made up a descriptor for rural areas). In my experience, you get used to the noise in the city - easier for some than for me. When I stay at my parents’ place (acres of woods/open space facing a river), the slightest noise drives me batshit.

On the other hand, so do the trains/buses/sirens in the city. Perhaps I’m just a light sleeper. Which would explain me waking up at 4am today because the dog was snoring.

18

Umbrella vendors and cabs have already been mentioned.
Sometimes people will crowd under building awnings.

The subway can get sort of disgusting as everything is wet and it can get pretty hot.

19

Well, I don’t live in a rural area. I live in a city of over a quarter million, which may sound small to Manhattanites, but it is by no means a farm. So I can’t quite explain the sound of a storm in a rural area, but I can describe it in a smaller city.

Here, I am not surrounded by high rises or tall buildings. I live in a residential neighborhood, in a split level house. I can hear the wind whip through the maple tree in the back yard, the leaves rustling like brushes on a snare drum. I can hear the rain hitting my roof, or if it’s windy, hitting my window. Sometimes when it’s coming down really hard, you can hear it pounding off of everything all at once; the ground, trees, roof, windows… it’s so exciting. I love opening my windows and hearing the boom of thunder so loud that it rattles my mirror. The light can be blinding, so close, so intense, so loud.

I would assume experiencing a thunderstorm where I live would be similar to experiencing a thunderstorm in a suburb. Go out to Queens and take a listen.

20

the big buildings “dance” in stormy high winds. sometimes office buildings will sound like creaking wood ships as they do the twist. if you were away from a window the creaking would be your first hint of a storm. you are able to see the water in toilets move.

then people would get up and look out a window. for the scattered thunderstorms of summer you could see the rain line advancing toward you as shadowfyre described. it is really neat.

there is a set of apartment towers (in philly) that move quite a bit on the upper floors. it is very, very, noticable. they were built about 40 years ago and it can be a bit scary during high winds.

one building in my 'hood tends to get hit with lightning a lot. big huge boom heard for blocks, and chunks of brick go flying. good times!